Monday, June 20, 2016

History: The Year is 1811

The War of 1812 Begins in 1811 -- Near the river of Tippecanoe, William Harrison will make his name as an Indian killer and pitch the country into the War of 1812.

The Luddites Sabotage Progress -- Textile workers organize to attack textile factories and break the machines that are putting them out of work.

In Other News -- Jane Austen publishes and Harriet Beecher Stowe is born.

The War of 1812 Begins in 1811

The battle takes place in the Territory of Indiana near the
Tippecanoe River. The Indian tribes have formed an alliance to resist
the incursion of white settlers. A Shawnee named Tecumseh (teh-KUM-seh)
organizes the alliance along with his brother "The Prophet." (He
receives messages from the gods.) They establish a central camp called
Prophetstown that acts as a supply depot, and training camp. About 1,000
Indians live there and this has made Governor William Harrison nervous.
The Secretary of War authorizes Harrison to negotiate with the Indians,
so Harrison marches his troops to Prophetstown and arranges to meet
with the Indians the next morning. All seems well, but that night, "The
Prophet" receives a mystical message that the white man's gunpowder has
turned to clay. The Indians surround Harrison's camp, but a sentry spots
them and fires a shot. The camp is awakened. Harrison's men leap to
their feet, but they are silhouetted against the camp fires and go down
hard. Harrison mounts the first horse he can find, a BLACK horse. This
saves his life because the Indians are looking for Harrison on his WHITE
horse. The Prophet is singing songs of victory, but it is soon apparent
that the Indians have lost. The Indian alliance is shattered, and when
the Americans find British supplies in Prophetstown, they are certain
that the Battle of Tippecanoe was a British plot.
[1][2]

My Take by Alex ShruggedSome
historians believe that this was the 1st battle in the War of 1812.
People's attitudes on both sides became very firm after those British
supplies were found. Governor William Harrison had let his guard down
somewhat when the Indians were so willing to talk. Frankly, it is
difficult to predict what people will do when they don't know
themselves. After the battle, Harrison took the nickname of "Old
Tippecanoe". Many years later he ran for President with the campaign
slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too." (Yes. Reminding voters that he was an
Indian-killer really helped the campaign.) Thirty-two days into the
Harrison Administration, "Old Tippecanoe" dropped dead, making John
Tyler President. When it was time for reelection, Tyler made his
campaign issue the gathering in of the Republic of Texas as a state, but
James K. Polk took the issue away from Tyler and signed the agreement
making Texas the 28th state on December 29th, 1845. [3][4]

The Luddites Sabotage Progress

For hundreds of years the weavers of the textile industry have been
the mainstay of any economy. (For a modern comparison, they are like the
union autoworkers of the 1960s and 70s.) But with the advent of
automation such as carding machines to separate wool, and power looms to
make cloth, the production of each worker has doubled, tripled, and
quadrupled which means that fewer workers are required to do the same
work. More and more textile workers are now out of work, so the textile
workers have organized to attack the factories. The machines are broken.
Wooden shoes are thrown into the gears. The shoes are called "sabot" (sah-BO),
which is where we get the word, "sabotage" meaning a deliberate attempt
to destroy. These saboteurs are called "Luddites". No one knows for
sure where the name came from but by tradition, it is derived from the
name, Ned Ludd, one of the first to break a machine. In the modern day a
"Luddite" is any person who opposes new technology.
[5][6][7][8][9][10]

My Take by Alex ShruggedThere
is a notion that somehow businesses are holding back on jobs in order
to pocket big profits for the rich. Other than with government-supported
monopolies like professional sports franchises, I don't see how that
could work. A business pays the least wages it can and still attract the
best workers. If there are many qualified people willing to do a job, a
business can pay a worker less. If there are fewer people to fill the
slot, a business will pay more. Why? Because if a business doesn't pay
more, then its competitor will hire the workers away and the business
will fold. The Luddites didn't want charity. They wanted to work, but
they only wanted to work doing the same old things the same old way.
New, efficient technology usually causes a displacement of workers. It
is a pain in the neck for those workers who are displaced but if we
didn't move forward with new technology what would we do with all those
people who made buggy-whips or those guys with shovels that followed
horses down the street?

In Other News

Avogadro's Law is published. If any number of gases are of equal volume, temperature and pressure, they contain the same number of molecules. [11]